Monday Madness / Holiday Reading Room HOT WHEELS "Humbug Run"

If a Santa in a motorized sleigh running two teens down isn't the very definition of "madness"...

Art by Neal Adams & Dick Giordano

...I don't know what is!
Enjoy this never-reprinted tale from the Silver Age of Comics!

The cover story for DC's Hot Wheels #6 (1971) was written by Len Wein, with art by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano, following Alex Toth's character designs from the 1969-1971 animated series based on the toy line.
Toth also illustrated most of the stories in the comic series, as shown below!

Art by Alex Toth from Hot Wheels #1

Bet You've NEVER Seen Santa Claus Like THIS...

Ah, the Silver Age of Comics!

When situations like the one portrayed above were the norm, rather than the exception.
From DC's Hot Wheels #6 (1970), the last issue of the first comic based on a TV series based on a toy line.

Ironically, it was the Christmas issue...

Long before He-Man, Micronauts, GI Joe and Transformers presented toys as animated action heroes, Hanna-Barbera's Hot Wheels animated series (based on the still-highly successful Mattel toys) featured a politically-correct team of teens battling evil while engaging in auto races in nifty cars (with their seat belts firmly buckled, of course)!
Yes, it sounds like Scooby Doo...but without the annoying talking dog...

To see this never-reprinted story, click HERE.

Len Wein (1948-2017)

Most remember Len Wein for co-creating Swamp Thing, Wolverine, and the All-New, All-Different X-Men...

FOOM Magazine #10 Cover Original Art by Dave Cockrum

(...particularly, Storm, Colossus, and NightCrawler.)

But I prefer to remember his earlier, quirky projects like...

Hot Wheels #6 Cover Art by Neal Adams & Dick Giordano

Hot Wheels

(based on the cartoon series based on the toy line)

Wild West Action #1 Cover Art by Syd Shores and Mike Esposito

The Bravados

(An ethnically-diverse assortment of Western heroes)
and his (believe it or not)...

Secret Hearts #148 Contents Page Art by Gray Morrow

...romance comics work!

Len was not a one-trick pony!

He had an interest in almost everything imaginable...and it showed in his work.

BTW, all the links are to material that hasn't been reprinted since publication in the early 1970s!

Check them out!

BONUS: Here's the printed version of the X-Men-themed cover for Marvel's FOOM #10...

...and that's why I wanted to run the original art!

The two-color (as compared to comics' usual four-color) printing really muddied up the art!